The mid-November winter storm sweeping through the Dakotas had my white knuckles locked firmly in the 10 and 2 o’clock positions. Scattered patches of ice covered I-94, and wreckers were clearing out several tractor-trailers that had overturned due to the heavy winds and slick conditions.
I was on the tail end of the storm, but the weather report was dismal: The first winter storm of the season to blast off from the Rockies is unloading its energy primarily in North Dakota, where it could dump up to 18 inches of snow and kick up winds as high as 50 mph. The system started with a round of freezing drizzle that made driving tricky in the Dakotas. It led to a chain reaction crash that totaled a state trooper’s vehicle and closed Interstate 94 in eastern North Dakota for several hours.
It was 25 degrees when I left Minnesota an hour before daylight, but the mercury had dropped to zero as I plodded across North Dakota. Luckily, the wind had dropped to a 20-mph North Dakota “breeze.” As I passed another tangled 18-wheeler wreck, I eased up on the gas and dropped the FJ Cruiser 25 mph below the 75-mph speed limit, knowing the 10-hour drive to Miles City, Montana, where I hoped to overnight, had just gotten a whole lot longer.
I was en route to the 9,000-acre Jumping Horse Ranch near Ennis, Montana, a sportsman’s paradise surrounded by three picturesque mountain ranges: the Madison Range, Gravelly Range and Tobacco Root Mountains. In addition to hunting opportunities that are off the charts, local shops and numerous resorts in Ennis cater to fly-fishing anglers, with guided trips on the Madison and in nearby Yellowstone National Park. I would pass on the fishing but had a couple of nonresident tags in my wallet — one for elk and another for deer. I was meeting up with some industry buddies for four days of pure hunting bliss.
Thankfully, I made it to Miles City shortly after dark and pulled over for the night, where I grabbed a bite and a beer and turned in early. Another six or so hours of driving the next day would see me to the ranch — if the roads improved.
As I pulled into Ennis, just 15 minutes from the ranch, I was white knuckled once again — but for an entirely different reason. I had been listening to my Minnesota Vikings for the past three hours, and they were locked in an overtime battle with the Buffalo Bills. Behind by four points, the Vikings almost reached the endzone three times during the final minute of the game, failing to score each time. All was lost, it seemed — until the Vikes recovered a Josh Allen fumble in his own endzone to take a 30-27 lead. Tyler Bass converted a field goal on the Bill’s final drive to take the game to overtime. After an unsuccessful Vikings drive, Allen made several impressive scrambles to get inside field goal range and take a few shots at a touchdown to win the game. Then Allen threw his second interception of the game, handing the Vikings the win. Skol!
I arrived at camp (in an elated mood) with just enough daylight left to check the zero on my rifle and take a quick cruise around the property to get a feel for what the morning might bring. Glassing the surrounding slopes that extended down from the mountains to the ranch, we spotted several nice bull elk working their way down to the field where they would feed at night. And it was the visions of those elk that I played back in my mind over and over when my head hit the pillow that night, the alarm set for 4:30 a.m.
It was cold and calm when I woke up the next morning, got my stuff together and climbed into Jeff Klein’s F350. Jeff is the ranch manager at Jumping Horse and my guide for the hunt — I figured I was in good hands. After a short ride, he pulled the truck through a gate leading into a hilly pasture and eased it down into a shallow gravel pit. “Good place to stash the truck,” he said as he killed the engine.
Jeff told me he had been keeping an eye on this area. “I’ve seen some elk coming down late at night and going back up in the morning,” he said. “I just thought it was a good place to see if we could get the wind right and catch them in that transition zone. The elk should be coming off that ridge to the left and from out in the crops behind us,” he pointed to the dim skyline. “Let’s hike up the hill a bit and wait for it to get light.”
A gentle snow was falling as we gained elevation, just enough to mess with visibility. “Up there on the closest ridge,” Jeff pointed up the hill. “Can you make out those elk just to the left of that farthest juniper? There are three of them.” It was still about 20 minutes till sunup — legal shooting light — but with the snow, I could barely make out the dark forms walking up the ridge.
As I watched the elk disappear over hill crest, Jeff tapped me on the shoulder. “There’s another bull coming in behind us, looks like a decent five by five,” he whispered. Being a bird-in-the-hand kind of guy, I pivoted to my right and got on the shooting sticks. The elk was striking a pose at 200 yards, quartered toward us, and I thumbed the safety. “He’s not spooked,” Jeff whispered. “Hold off till he turns broadside. The standoff lasted about 10 minutes. Then the bull turned and started walking parallel to us. Jeff gave a cow call and it pulled to a stop and looked up at us. A shot through the lungs ended the drama, and we walked over to check out our early morning prize.
I often experience an odd combination of elation and emotional letdown when a hunt wraps up so quickly, but I immediately got over it. I still had a deer tag in my wallet — good for a muley or a whitetail — and Jeff told me they’d been seeing an impressive whitetail buck hanging out close to the ranch house. “I got some pictures of him in the middle of September, and he’s one of the nicest bucks I’ve seen here on the ranch,” he said. “There’s all those pockets of does around here and a couple of little shelterbelts with a lot of cover where I think he’s been bedding.”
The thing was, I wasn’t the only one with my sights on the buck.
That night after dinner and a few adult beverages, we came to a decision. We would draw straws for a chance at the stud buck. I drew the short straw … but in this case it was a good thing, and Jeff and I would try to locate the buck in the morning and put a sneak on it.
We drove around at first light glassing for the short-straw buck, to no avail. We spotted several does and smallish bucks, but the big guy was nowhere to be found. We took a short break for lunch and headed back out at 3 p.m. and almost immediately spotted him in the middle of a wide open field bedded down with a single doe. Jeff quickly came up with a game plan. “See that popup blind on the fence line? If we can put it between us and the deer and get to the fence line we might have a shot.”
Hunkered over, I followed Jeff as we sneaked to the blind without spooking the deer from their beds. Jeff eased the tripod around the edge of the blind and I inched into position and slowly placed the rifle up on its cradle, and settled in for the waiting game.
I was shifting positions to restore feeling in my legs about 20 minutes later when the buck stood up to stretch, and I quickly planted the crosshairs on center mass and squeezed the trigger. I stood and shook the snow from my pants and walked the 200 yards to where the buck had piled up, taking a deep breath to drink it all in. The crisp mountain air. The postcard-perfect backdrop. The exhilaration and fading adrenaline rush. The perfect end to a perfect day.
